Should You Consider Working With An Appointment Setting Service?

Choosing an appointment setting service partner is a big deal. It means giving up some control in order to use external expert talent so your sales team can gain efficiency and increase effectiveness.

So should you consider partnering with an appointment setting service for your business? There are three questions you should ask yourself:

1. Do you understand your target market?

Understanding your prospects in an intimate way is essential for setting up a successful campaign with an appointment setting service partner. Do you know where they work, what they do, who they hang out with, and how they make decisions? This type of information is imperative to not only your success but the success of an appointment setting partnership. 

If you don't understand your target market before partnering with an appointment setting service, it may not be the right approach for your organization. While it's true that an appointment setting service can help you hone in on your target market niche, it's probably not the most cost-effective approach. Instead, work with your marketing team to really uncover your buyer personas and then work with an appointment setting service to add a jolt to your sales funnel activity.

2. Are your prospecting systems/tools working well now?

Most businesses consider the use of an appointment setting service as a means to increase the number of leads their sales team is following up with. However, the best appointment setting partnerships start with an already effective prospecting approach.

When considering ways to increase productivity you have to look at what your current sales representatives are doing. Are they spending time really prospecting, digging in and being very intentional about your target market? If they are, now consider how much of their time they spend doing that? If that number is higher than you want but you’re seeing results then the good news is you probably have a prospecting system in place that can be duplicated and passed off to someone else, keeping your team filled with appointments, focused on closing new clients and bringing in revenue.

3. Does your sales team have a great close rate?

Often times, organizations reach out to appointment setting services to help fix their closing problem. Unfortunately, these types of services will not fix that and should not be a reason for working with an appointment setting service. Their job is to set quality appointments, but your sales team's job will continue to be closing deals. 

On the other hand, if your sales team does have a great close rate, this would be the perfect scenario for working with an appointment setting service. These services offer expert prospectors and will help fill the top of your funnel, allowing your team to do what they do best, and spend time closing new business.

So should you consider working with an appointment setting service? Answer the three questions above as honestly as possible and you'll determine if it's best to partner with an appointment setting service now or not.  Keep in mind that the answer could easily change as your internal team grows.

Tips & Tricks to Keep Your Lead Generation Team Motivated

It’s too easy for the daily grind to get the best of us. To keep sales reps motivated, you have to create an environment that’s mentally healthy for your workforce to achieve their goals. Here are a few tips to help create a culture that breeds success.

1.)   Create Healthy Competition

This can be as simple as the Operations Manager hopping on the phones for a couple hours. Nothing rally’s the troops better than seeing their leader out there with them on the front lines. You can also use gamification among your team encouraging each member to push one another to reach different goals that are specific and realistic. Be careful because if the goals are unachievable, this approach will have an inverse effect.

2.)   Give Recognition Where It’s Due

It can be incredibly frustrating to be crushing your goals and feeling like your efforts are going completely unnoticed. Identify who your best performers are and recognize them for their excellence. Managers often-times fall into a pattern where they ignore the best performers and put all their time and energy into those who are struggling or don’t care. This makes sense to an extent, but by not giving enough credit to those who are putting it all on the line for your company could eventually drive your best team members away.

3.)   Have a Strong Training Program

Ensuring your team is prepared for the task at hand boosts confidence which results in increased motivation and productivity. If the rep feels not ready or unsure of what they’re supposed to do then their performance will reflect that. A strong training program reinforces the employees trust in the company and the processes that are in place.

4.)   Trust Your Team

You hired each member of your team for a reason. They’re professionals. No one likes to have someone looking over their shoulder critiquing their every move. Guidance and direction are perfectly okay but once the rep has all the materials they need, trust them to get the job done until they’ve proven you otherwise.

Overcome Your Fear of Lead Generation

If you’re new to an inside sales position, picking up the phone can be intimidating. It’s human nature to fear the unknown and you don’t always know who is going to be on the other side of the phone or what objections you’re going to face. These feelings are perfectly normal and the only way to truly overcome them are repetition and experience.

Here are a handful of tips to keep in mind as you begin your inside sales journey.

Everyone is Human

You’re doing nothing more than trying to connect with another human being. How do you think they started their business or got the job? They had to sell themselves as well at one point to get to where they are today. Even if we don’t realize it, we’re all in sales.

The Worst You Can Hear is “No.”

That’s literally it. What’s the worst that can happen? Each “no” is one interaction closer to a “yes.” No matter it be on the job or your personal life, we’re programmed to respond negatively to rejection. You just have to keep grinding and move on to the next prospect.

Keep a Positive Mindset

Hopefully, you have a defined target market and a product or service you believe in. If so, you’re doing nothing more than helping your prospects. Each minute you wait to call is another minute they don’t know you exist. Reach out, say hello, make an attempt to understand a little more about who they and what they do to further qualify whether or not they’re a good fit.

Embrace Your Interactions as a Learning Opportunity

No one is an expert at anything the first time they try. Not the top sales rep, your sales manager, or your CEO for that matter. They earned their positions by trial and error, learning over a period of time. You will have to go through the same learning curve to understand what works and what doesn’t about your approach.

Have Fun!

Celebrate your victories and learn to laugh off your failures. You won’t ever be able to please everyone you interact with. Keep a smile, joke around with your peers when you run into someone particularly rude or if you happen to stumble over your words, then move on to the next.

B2B Lead Generation Using Facebook

Struggling to add new leads to your marketing funnel and drive revenue for your business? If you haven’t thought about using Facebook to help generate leads for your B2B organization, it’s time you considered it.

The Facts

• 72% of adult internet users use Facebook.
• Facebook continues to have the most engaged users -- 70% log on daily, including 43% who do so several times a day.
• 74% of people say they use Facebook for professional purposes.
• Content consumption on Facebook has increased 57% in the past two years.
• 90% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. 

The Process

There are many different ways to generate B2B leads using Facebook depending on your business objective. One of the most effective strategies we’ve used is outlined below:

Added Value

When this approach is paired with our fractional lead generation service, you end up with an account-based sales (ABS) strategy. Account-based selling is a multi-touch, multi-channel strategy coordinated across marketing and sales teams to pursue a target number of high-value accounts.

When marketing and sales teams work together from the very start and throughout the revenue cycle, you’re much more likely to generate high-quality leads and close them faster to grow your business.

#RelationshipsMatter | Employee Spotlight: Sarah Nelson

Incept is a place where relationships matter. We're a creative, diverse, and engaging community uniting more than 200 team members with Fortune 500 companies, blood centers, and B2B sales teams across the United States and we want to share some of the stories from the people that make this team great every day.

Today we bring you Sarah Nelson, Incept's Marketing Manager.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, my name is Sarah Nelson, I'm the Marketing Manager here at Incept.  I manage our digital and online brand, and I also work with many of our clients to manage their digital campaigns through alternative channels.

What I have enjoyed most about working in the contact center industry is that everything revolves around one conversation. If you can figure out how to drive that one conversation, make it meaningful for you and for the person on the other end of the phone, or on the other side of the computer, and make a difference in their life, change their thoughts, encourage them to go out and make a difference, that's been pretty cool to be a part of.

The thing I enjoy most about working here at Incept has to be the people. Clearly they've made culture a priority, so it is fun coming into work, I feel energized. I feel like I'm able to come in every day, work at being the best possible version of myself, whether that means in my current role, with my current responsibilities, or pushing the boundaries and being a part of some of the bigger conversations being had here at Incept.

The most exciting thing that's happened in the last year for me is that I found out my husband and I are going to be having a little boy!  It's going to be a big change, but we're super excited, and so ready to meet him.

Again, I'm Sarah Nelson, Marketing Manager here at Incept, where relationships matter.

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE

Want to get to know Sarah a little more? See if you can spot which one is the lie in a game of Two Truths and a Lie:

Think you know the answer? Find out here.